How to create a Visio Data Visualizer flowchart
The Data Visualizer flowchart most people want is the cross-functional one. Which of the three templates produces lanes, how the function and phase columns map in the wizard, and why the basic template silently ignores them.
A Data Visualizer flowchart with swimlanes comes from the "Cross-Functional Flowchart - Data Visualizer" template in the Visio desktop app, where the wizard's Functions/Phases page maps your function column to the lanes and your phase column to the timeline.
The short version
- Lanes come from one template only: "Cross-Functional Flowchart - Data Visualizer".
- The function and phase columns are ignored outright by the basic Data Visualizer template.
- The wizard's Functions/Phases page holds "Function or Swimlane" (required) and "Phase or Timeline".
- Process Step ID must be unique and must not be blank, or the flow cannot be built.
- Export the diagram, its workbook and the mapping as a .vtpx template package to reuse the whole set-up.
Two columns decide whether you get lanes
The Data Visualizer diagram people actually want is the cross-functional one: a flow with a lane per team and a phase band across the top, generated from a table instead of drawn. In the Visio desktop app that comes from one specific template: "Cross-Functional Flowchart - Data Visualizer". Microsoft's documented entry path is to open Visio, or select File > New if you are already editing a diagram, then select TEMPLATES and select Flowchart. From the template preview you take Microsoft's "Excel data template", choose a unit of measurement and select Create, which launches the Create Diagram from Data wizard against your workbook.
There are three Data Visualizer templates ("Basic Flowchart - Data Visualizer", "Cross-Functional Flowchart - Data Visualizer" and "Audit Diagram - Data Visualizer"), and the choice is not cosmetic. Two columns in Microsoft's source workbook carry the function (the swimlane) and the phase (the timeline), and Microsoft says plainly that they only apply to a Cross-Functional Flowchart diagram and are ignored by a Basic Flowchart diagram. Nothing warns you. Fill both columns in carefully, pick the basic template, and you get a correct, complete, entirely flat flowchart with no lanes and no phases, and no message explaining where the ownership you typed went.
The rest is the honest licence context. Microsoft documents the Data Visualizer templates and the Create Diagram from Data wizard as available with Visio Plan 2 only (US$15 per user per month, paid yearly, at the list price shown on the en-us storefront at the time of writing), and Plan 2 is the only subscription tier that includes the desktop app. There is no Visio desktop app for macOS. Data-connected diagrams cannot be edited in Visio for the web, so creation and refresh are desktop work in practice. If you came here looking for the Excel add-in of the same name, its status is a separate story: see /guides/how-to-use-visio-data-visualizer.
The worked example below is an event that four teams deliver (Organiser, Marketing, Finance, Venue and operations) across five phases from Brief to Wrap-up. It is built in QueryChart, where lanes are simply two more columns on the same rows rather than a mapping step, so you can watch the same function-and-phase idea land as a diagram while you decide whether the Visio route is the one you want. The Visio procedure above and below is the answer either way.
The same flow, one column at a time
An event delivered by four teams across five phases, revealed in four stages so you can see what the function and phase columns actually add.
Steps and shapes only
"Agree the event brief and target date" is the start, and "Shortlist venues and hold the target date" is the first thing anybody does with it. In Data Visualizer terms this is the description and shape-type columns filled in and nothing else: a list of boxes with no flow yet.
Connections, and the first loop
Row 4 asks "Budget approved by Finance?" and row 5 asks whether a reduced-scope option is viable, which points back to row 3. That backwards arrow is what a next-step column has to be able to express: rework is normal, and a table that only counts forwards cannot describe it.
Branch labels on every exit
"Venue contract signed by the six-week cut-off?" now carries Signed and Not signed, and the unsigned route asks whether an alternative venue is free before ending at "Event postponed to a new date" rather than trailing off. Visio's equivalent is the connector-label column, where branching labels are separated by a comma in the same order as the next-step values.
The function and phase columns
Adding the owner and the phase to each row turns the identical flow into a cross-functional diagram: four lanes, five phases, and the handoffs suddenly visible: Organiser to Venue and operations at the shortlist, into Finance for approval, out to Marketing for the campaign. This is exactly the content the basic Data Visualizer template discards.
How it works
Open the cross-functional Data Visualizer template in Visio desktop
Microsoft's path is: open Visio, or select File > New if you are already editing a diagram, then select TEMPLATES and select Flowchart. Three Data Visualizer templates are listed: Basic Flowchart, Cross-Functional Flowchart and Audit Diagram. Choose "Cross-Functional Flowchart - Data Visualizer": it is the only one of the three that reads a function and a phase column. Microsoft documents the templates as available with Visio Plan 2 only, and the wizard likewise.
Take Microsoft's Excel data template, then select Create
From the template preview select "Excel data template" to get the starter workbook, choose a unit of measurement, and select Create. Create is what launches the Create Diagram from Data wizard. Start from this workbook rather than the two sample files Microsoft's support articles link through aka.ms: as of 30 July 2026 both of those short links redirect to Bing, which is what an unmapped aka.ms link does.
Fill the workbook in as an Excel table
The schema is a step ID that Microsoft requires to be unique and not blank, a description whose text is added to each shape, the ID of the next step in the sequence, a connector label (for branching shapes, labels separated by a comma), a shape type, and the function and phase columns. Make the range a real Excel table: Microsoft's guidance is to use a table and not a custom range if you want to keep the diagram and the data synchronised. Column-by-column detail is on /guides/how-to-turn-excel-data-into-visio-flowchart.
Answer the wizard's Excel page
The first of the wizard's five pages asks "What diagram do you want to create from data?", then to "Select the Excel workbook" and to "Select a table or a custom range in the workbook". Point it at the table you just built. Getting the diagram type right here is the same decision as the template choice: this is the last point at which choosing basic instead of cross-functional is cheap to undo.
Map the lanes on the Functions/Phases page
The second page is where the diagram gets its structure. "Function or Swimlane" is a required mapping: point it at your owner column and each distinct value becomes a lane. "Phase or Timeline" is the optional companion, and pointing it at your phase column gives you the bands across the flow. Nothing else in the wizard produces lanes, and no amount of later formatting will add them to a diagram built from the basic template.
Finish the remaining three pages
Process Steps asks for "Process Step ID / Activity ID" (required) and "Process Step / Activity Description", and carries an Accessibility section. Shape Types maps "Shape Type for Process Steps / Activities," and this is not limited to the flowchart stencil, because Microsoft confirms you can create the diagram by mapping your process data to any stencil in Visio, including your own. Connections handles "Delimiter" and "Connector Label". Then select Finish.
Mistakes to avoid
Picking the basic template and losing the lanes silently
The function and phase columns only apply to a Cross-Functional Flowchart diagram and are ignored by a Basic Flowchart diagram. You get a valid flat flowchart, no error, and no hint that the ownership you typed was dropped. If it happens, the workbook is fine: start again from the cross-functional template and re-run the wizard against the same table.
A blank or duplicated step ID
Microsoft's rule on the step ID column is flat: each value in the Excel table must be unique and not be blank. It is the identity every next-step reference resolves against, so a repeated ID makes the flow ambiguous and a blank one leaves a step unreachable. Sort the column and check for duplicates before you run the wizard, not after.
Expecting to refresh it in the browser
Microsoft lists diagrams connected to Excel among the diagrams that cannot be edited in Visio for the web, so Refresh Diagram and Update Source Data (both on the Data Tools Design tab, which appears only once the diagram container is selected) are desktop commands. The mechanics, and the second unrelated refresh feature people confuse with this one, are covered on /guides/how-to-update-visio-flowchart-from-excel.
Treating Plan 2 as an upsell rather than a requirement
Microsoft's wording is that the ability to use the Data Visualizer templates is only available with Visio Plan 2, and Plan 2 is the only subscription tier that ships the desktop app the templates live in. Plan 1 is web and Teams; Visio in Microsoft 365 is capped to basic diagram types. There is no macOS desktop app at all, so a Mac is not a route to this feature. If you want lanes without Plan 2, the hand-drawn cross-functional template is the Visio answer: /guides/how-to-create-cross-functional-flowchart-in-visio.
Get these lanes from two columns
Open the event example as your own chart to see the owner and phase columns doing the work, then paste your own steps over the rows.
Related guides
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between the Basic and Cross-Functional Data Visualizer templates?
Both generate a flowchart from the same Excel table, with the same step IDs, next-step references, connector labels and shape types. The difference is two columns. The cross-functional template reads a function column and turns each distinct value into a swimlane, and a phase column that becomes the timeline across the diagram. Microsoft states that those columns only apply to a Cross-Functional Flowchart diagram and are ignored by a Basic Flowchart diagram. The third template, Audit Diagram - Data Visualizer, is a different diagram type again. If you want lanes, the template choice is the decision that matters.
Do I need Visio Plan 2 for a Data Visualizer cross-functional flowchart?
Microsoft documents it that way: the ability to use the Data Visualizer templates is only available with Visio Plan 2, and the same sentence appears for the Create Diagram from Data wizard. Plan 2's list price on the en-us storefront at the time of writing is US$15 per user per month paid yearly, and it is the only subscription tier that includes the Windows desktop app. Reseller pages claim the perpetual 2024 editions include the templates; Microsoft's own wording is Plan 2, and we would not assert otherwise. For the retired Excel add-in that once offered a cheaper route, see /guides/how-to-use-visio-data-visualizer.
Can I reuse the same workbook and mapping for another process?
Yes, and this is the least known useful thing on the surface. With the diagram container selected you can Export the Data Visualizer diagram to a .vtpx Visio template package, which bundles the diagram, its workbook and the mapping together. Somebody else opening that package gets your column layout and your shape mapping already wired, so they only replace the rows. Macro-enabled diagrams and workbooks cannot be exported this way. It is a much better way to standardise process mapping across a team than emailing a workbook and hoping the wizard is answered the same way twice.
How do I get swimlanes from a spreadsheet without Visio Plan 2?
The same idea works without a mapping wizard. In QueryChart the rows are the chart: one row per step, a column holding the row number each step leads to, and two more columns for the owner and the phase, which is what produces the lanes in the example above. Editing the data is editing the diagram, in the browser on any operating system, so there is no desktop requirement and nothing to refresh. It is also worth knowing that Visio remains stronger where its content ecosystem matters: engineering and network diagrams, custom stencils, BPMN 2.0 validation with Check Diagram, and working offline.
